


Ski Trip

by Lindstrom



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Charles is snarky, Emma Frost does her one good deed for the year, Erik Lehnsherr Has Feelings, Erik Logic Is The Best Logic, First Kiss, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Mutual Crushes, Skiing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-13 16:55:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17491727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lindstrom/pseuds/Lindstrom
Summary: Charles attempts to catch Erik's attention on the ski slopes, which works, but not in the way he intended.





	Ski Trip

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to ToriTC198 for the beta read.

He’d wanted so badly to be impressive, and instead he is sitting in the snow with his knee on fire and Raven pushing on it while saying, “does this hurt?”

Charles chokes out a series of threats that Raven does not take as seriously as she should.

“How about I make you a snow teddy bear to cuddle?”

“You’re mocking me.”

“No! Underneath the sarcasm I am very sympathetic!”

Charles knows he is expected to laugh because this is the way their banter goes, but the truth is, his knee really does hurt, and the thought that he may need surgery because he tried to show off just because Erik Lehnsherr is somewhere upslope and there was a tiny chance he might have been looking the right way in the split second Charles would have been airborn is mocking him harder than Raven is. He can’t manage the laugh.

The icy swish of skis announces an arrival, two arrivals, actually, Charles discovers when he twists around to see who else has come to watch him sit in the snow while his knee swells. It isn’t much of a show - he still has his snow pants on and all the drama is writ on his face and the effort not to let the pain humiliate him further. His sunglasses are gone, lost somewhere as he skidded down the mountain. The blue sky is as bright as the snow, and he can’t look at anything without squinting. The squint is disguising the grimace of pain, so he doesn’t mind as much as he might otherwise.

“Oh, sugar,” a voice purrs as a woman whose ski outfit is as white as the snow crunches to a stop.

“Where are his skis?” a masculine voice asks Raven, and Charles wonders if an earthquake will show him the mercy of opening the mountain and swallowing him whole, so Erik Lehnsherr does not see how impressive Charles is not.

Erik retrieves Charles’ skis from where they skidded after they popped off his boots and plants them in an X upslope from Charles, the universal distress signal warning other skiers not to collide with the klutz whose skis are no longer being used for skiing.

“Is anything broken?” Emma asks Raven, even though Charles is sitting right there.

“His knee is in bad shape,” Raven answers.

“Do you want to try and stand?”

It is Erik’s voice, and Charles can’t help but look up because he can never keep from looking at Erik if he has the chance. Erik is wearing a gray Columbia parka with blue piping and blue goggles that obscure most of his face except for that strong jawline and thin lips, the lines of which Charles has already memorized. The sunlight in the mountains is brighter than down in the city, and it brushes over the stubble along his jaw and burnishes it copper. Then Erik pulls off his knit hat, shakes it, and puts it back on, but not before that sunlight has a chance to briefly highlight the copper sparks in his hair. Erik is tall and exquisite enough that conversations with him are a little bit unreal, like a Norse god leaving Valhalla and asking Charles where he can find post-it notes. That was his first conversation with Erik.

Erik is on the production team of the 3D computed tomography scanner; Charles is on the neuro-imaging application team. Charles has never loved inter-departmental meetings so much in his life. But while he and Erik can talk for hours about mapping neural networks and how to reduce ionizing radiation used by x-ray machines, Charles has never managed to move the conversation onto more personal topics because his brain fizzes out. He has wondered how that phenomenon would appear on this 3D brain scanner they are building.

The company retreat at a ski resort was to be his big chance to show Erik he is more than just an over-educated brainiac who can speak in six-syllable words. Except now he can’t speak at all.

“Yeah, let’s see if he can stand,” Raven says, without any input from Charles.

Erik braces himself and offers an arm for Charles to pull on as he stands up. Charles can’t decide between hoping he can stand, and hoping he swoons into Erik’s arms. He finds a middle ground between shaky and falling over that does invite Erik to put an arm around his waist to steady him.

Due to the many-layered thicknesses of parkas, sweaters and ski gloves, Charles’ first chance to have Erik’s arm around him is really not that great. But then Erik’s skis slip just a bit, enough to jerk Erik off-balance and he has to tighten his hold on Charles to compensate, bringing his face much closer. Charles wonders if he can kick Erik’s ski, knock him entirely off-balance so they fall down into the snow together and he can turn his head just right for an accidentally-on-purpose kiss. If only he could make that work. It is more likely that he would smash his nose into Erik’s forehead and have a horrific nosebleed.

Charles notices the restrained smile on Emma’s lips and wonders how much of his reaction to Erik is showing on his face. Quite a lot, he assumes.

“Not going to work,” Erik pronounces. “Let’s get you a toboggan.”

Riding down the mountain in a first aid toboggan is not impressive, but his knee is shrieking in pain when all he is doing is standing. He can’t ski.

“It’s Raven, isn’t it? From graphic design? How about you and I ski down and find the first aid office? Erik, you don’t mind waiting here with Charles, do you?” Emma says. Her smooth words slide everyone around just the way she wants.

Within a few seconds, Emma and Raven are swishing down the mountain, Raven’s final warning to sit down and not do anything stupid floating out behind her. Charles sits down in the snow. Emma did that _on purpose_. She just handed him thirty minutes alone with Erik on a silver platter. His knee is sending waves of pain throughout his entire leg, and Charles can’t stop smiling. Now if only he could think of something to say.

 

* * *

 

“Oh, look, your puppy is right up there,” Emma says, pointing to where Charles and Raven have just gotten off the ski lift.

“Don’t call him that,” Erik replies.

“I mean that in the cutest way possible, of course. Have you ever had anyone crush on you that hard?” Emma asks.

Erik gives her a look, but the flat stare that intimidates so many others into silence has no effect on Emma.

“Of course you have. My mistake,” Emma says as the two of them ski off the lift. “We’re thinking of raffling off a dinner date and rigging it so you and Charles win. Just to put him out of his misery. After a couple hours with you, he’ll get over his crush.”

“How about you head down that double black diamond run right there. I’ll meet you at the bottom,” Erik suggests, waving a ski pole towards the sign planted on the edge of a cliff.

“Sugar,” Emma says reprovingly, clucking her tongue. “That’s not nice.”

“As if you can make accusations like that.”

“I do nice things,” Emma says.

“Mm-hmm. Do something nice in the next ten minutes, and I’ll believe you. Shit!” This last exclamation comes as Erik sees Charles wipe out and go tumbling down the mountainside. That was a bad fall.

Skiing down Charles’ trail of mangled snow, Erik pauses to pick up Charles’ sunglasses, and Emma reaches Charles and his sister first. “Where are his skis?” Erik asks when he gets there. Raven points them out. Erik jams them into the snow upslope from Charles and comes back to offer to help him stand.

Charles looks at him, with Emma watching him look at Erik. That makes Erik self-conscious enough to fidget with his hat and wait for Charles to take his arm. Once Charles stands up, it’s obvious he can’t ski down the mountain. “Not going to work,” Erik says. “Let’s get you a toboggan.”

Emma quickly suggests leaving with Raven for the first aid office. What is she playing it? Erik catches her eye, and she drops him a quick wink. “I told you I do nice things,” she says _sotto voce_ before skiing off down the mountain with Raven.

Erik braces Charles as he sits down in the snow again and then pops his skis off and sits down next to him. “The 3D modification to the digital x-ray receptors is giving us some trouble, but you should see Armando go at it on the hologram projector. He’s insisting we call him Obi-Wan Kenobi and tell him he’s our only hope.”

Charles fell back flat into the snow. “Please let’s not talk about work.”

Well, damn, now what are they supposed to talk about? It’s not like Erik is the suave and flirty type, and knowing Charles has a crush on him makes him all kinds of self-conscious. He could comment on the scenery, which is stunning - all crisp white edges against evergreen tree boughs and deep blue sky. But that’s fairly generic too. Besides, Emma didn’t do her one good deed for the year so he could maintain the awkwardness between them. If things are going to be awkward, best to address it head on.

“Tell me about your second most embarrassing moment.”

“My second?” Charles asks.

“This is your most embarrassing moment, right? What’s second place?”

“Then you’ll tell me yours?”

Erik shrugs. “Sure.”

Charles pauses for a moment, and then tells a story about falling out of the school bus in junior high.

“You fall down a lot, huh?”

“Get me on the dance floor some time and I’ll demonstrate.”

That’s a great set-up line, and Erik is struggling to come up with something flirty in reply when Charles says, “your turn for an embarrassing moment story.”

“It’s a long one.”

“I’m a captive audience, you know.”

Another great set-up line, and again Erik fails to flirt. He’ll come up with a great line at 3:00 a.m., when he’s lying awake and agonizing over how he could have handled this with more panache.

“Alright, so I meet this guy. He’s interesting to talk to - smart as hell, and probably has a sense of humor if he’d relax a bit but for some reason I make him really nervous. Plus, he’s hot as blazes but doesn’t know it. I’m dating someone though, but there’s nothing wrong with appreciating the eye candy. It makes inter-departmental meetings more interesting. Then my boyfriend dumped me. It should be devastating, but the truth is, it’s been building for a while. We were kind of mismatched from the start, and besides, I’ve got this other guy that I like more every time I talk to him. I figure I have to wait a few weeks to ask him out so he doesn’t think he’s just my rebound.”

“You do suffer some embarrassment here eventually, right?” Charles interrupts.

“Sshh,” Erik shushes him, waving a hand. “I’m getting there. So I’m working up to asking him out, and people start teasing me that he’s got a crush on me. Like, the whole office somehow knows that this guy I like is crushing on me. Hard, like, so hard.”

“How is that embarrassing?” Charles demands. Erik can’t tell if Charles is blushing, or if he just didn’t notice how badly he was sunburned earlier. The smile he’s fighting to keep from taking over his face persuades Erik that he’s blushing.

“Because I’m going to disappoint him! You know how it is with crushes. You put them up there on a pedestal and expect them to have all these great lines and be sexy and sophisticated. What’s he going to do when he finds out I consider mac’n’cheese to be a real meal? And my feet stink! Seriously, I could fumigate a kitchen.”

“So no roaches?” Charles is no longer bright red, and he sounds very serious. Erik has long suspected a sense of humor, and it appears to be the dry and teasing variety.

“Only dead ones. I sweep them up occasionally.” Erik matches Charles’ serious tone. When he catches his eye, Erik gives him half a smile and Charles ducks his head self-consciously. It instantly becomes Erik’s favorite mannerism. “Also, I can never come up with the right thing to say in the moment. I lie awake thinking about it half the night and come up with a great line at 3:00 a.m. What’s going to happen when I text him at 3:00 a.m. and say, ‘hey, you know how you said you were a captive audience and I didn’t really answer you?’ and then tell him what I wish I would have said? These things worry me, Charles.”

“What do you wish you would have said?”

“It’s not 3:00 a.m. yet, so I don’t know.” Erik sneaks another glance at Charles. He’s smiling, which crinkles up those round cheeks. Erik wants to memorize the look in Charles’ eyes right now, to keep it in a velvet-lined box and take it out and savor it whenever life kicks his ass. Because if he can make someone look that happy, he must not be all bad.

“He might be able to take all of that in stride, you know.” Charles is now nonchalant, watching other skiers zip past them.

Erik heaves a huge sigh. “Yeah, but he still doesn’t know about this other crappy thing I did. He wiped out. Bad, like, really bad. I watched him smear himself down the mountainside and you know what I did? I found his sunglasses and I won’t give them back because he’s got the most amazing blue eyes, even when he’s squinting because it’s so bright out here.”

“Erik, give me back my sunglasses.”

“No.”

 

* * *

 

“Raven!”

“I’m just trying to help you, Charles.”

“I don’t need your help to get my snow pants off!”

“Yeah, I wonder whose help you want.”

Angel, the first aid tech, coughs uncomfortably. “Perhaps most of you could wait outside?”

It turns out that riding a first aid toboggan down the mountainside is like being the Pied Piper. Logan and Alex from security followed him down, and Sean joined in once he saw Alex. Armando came to see what Erik was doing. Then Moira showed up because she hates to be left out of any group. Shaw even asked Emma what was going on, though he left again after telling Charles to take care. Hank is taking advantage of the tiny first aid room to stand close to Raven. Charles would have expected a little more support from Hank, but he’s distracted by the fact that Raven keeps turning to ask him questions while their faces are only two inches apart. Charles narrows his eyes at her. She knows exactly what she’s doing to Hank right now, so it’s a bit rich for her to tease him about Erik.

“Out. All of you.” Erik has a flat, no-nonsense tone that gets results.

“Don’t sign any legal disclaimers until you talk to me,” Moira tells Charles before she follows the rest of the group out.

“Look, mostly what I’m going to tell you is to ice your knee, keep it elevated, and see a doctor in a couple of days when the swelling goes down,” Angel says.

“Am I going to need surgery?” Charles asks.

“Shouldn’t he take his pants off so you can see his knee?” Erik asks at the same time.

Charles blushes. This isn’t exactly the setting in any of his fantasies, but he can work with reality if needs be. Besides, he’s got thermals on under his ski pants.

“Yeah, I can check your knee. It won’t change what I’m going to tell you, but if it makes you feel better, then whatever,” Angel says with a shrug. “Call me when you’re ready.” She walks through a door and swings it mostly shut behind her.

Charles assumes she’s working here for the free ski pass rather than because she’s devoted to a career in medicine.

“How much help do you want?” Erik asks.

The thing is, Charles never imagined ordinary interactions with Erik. Mostly, his imagination has conjured up dramatic, sexy situations in which Charles is wildly impressive and sweeps Erik off his feet. Sitting in a drafty first aid room, trapped in three layers of snow gear, with Erik being matter-of-fact is both better and worse than he’d ever imagined. Worse, because he is not impressive or sexy right now, and better because it’s actually happening. He got the message from Erik’s speech on the mountainside: don’t expect him to fit into a fantasy. Erik is real. And he already likes Charles, which seems a bit unreal, but opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities.

Charles slides off the exam table. “Catch me if I start to fall over.”

His snow pants are coveralls, so he has to take off his parka to get the straps off his arms and pull down the pants. He doesn’t get wobbly until the pants are down around his knees. Erik grabs his elbow and steadies him.

“Hop back up on the table. I’ll get them the rest of the way off.”

Charles hops back up. Working carefully around his injured knee, Erik slides the snow pants off. He’s wearing black thermals underneath. They’re skin tight, but there is enough Spandex in them that he can roll them up over his knee. It’s not as bad as he’d feared. His knee is a little thicker than usual, but it hasn’t turned purple or anything like that.

Erik fetches Angel. She comes back in the room, pokes at Charles’ knee, asks if it hurts, then repeats her advice to ice it, elevate it, and go see a doctor in a couple of days. From the freezer marked with a big red cross, Angel produces an ice bag and plops it on his bare knee. Her duty done, Angel picks up her phone and wanders away.

“That seems to be the sum total of medical help I’m getting,” Charles comments. It’s reassuring, actually, there must not be anything seriously wrong with his knee; maybe he won’t need surgery after all. From up on the exam table, Charles can’t reach his snow pants, or his parka. There is a heater blasting away, but with the door open and the window so drafty, it means he’s sitting in a warm breeze and is otherwise freezing cold.

Erik seats himself on the exam table next to Charles, close enough to block the draft from the window, close enough that Charles can see his eyes are light blue with flecks of green. “Want to hear more about my most embarrassing moment that I was telling you about?”

“Yes. You haven’t actually gotten to any embarrassing parts yet, you know,” Charles says. If Erik wants to keep talking about him, Charles will happily sit here for another hour, frostbite be damned.

“Doesn’t awkwardness count?”

“No. You have to do something ridiculous.”

“Mmm, yeah, I’m sure I’ll make a fool out of myself soon enough.” Erik’s eyes slide down to Charles’ mouth and stay there. “So this guy I like is sprawled out on a table wearing nothing but black spandex, and he’s got a damn fine ass.”

That’s inaccurate, the bit about the clothes anyway. Charles is also wearing a thick sweater, and the pants are thermals (there is something knit or silk or whatever mixed in with the spandex), but there is no sense getting picky about details. And he isn’t going to argue with Erik’s opinion of his ass.

“He’s in pain, and he’s cold, and all I can think about is that he’s going to be icing his knee in my room.” Erik is leaning in, his eyes wandering from Charles’ mouth down Charles’ body in a way that makes him flush. “I wouldn’t just abandon him to ice his knee without any help, right? Not if he’s going to be my boyfriend. And if we go to his room, his sister might show up and try to be helpful. I’m not sure I want any interruptions once I’ve got him alone.”

“This isn’t an embarrassing moment, Erik, this is more like seduction.” Charles has chills that have nothing to do with the cold room, and he can’t stop smiling because Erik said ‘boyfriend.’

“Thanks for the vocabulary lesson, professor,” Erik says. He hovers over Charles’ mouth for a just a second before hopping off the table and gathering up Charles’ winter gear. “We’re going upstairs now, because I have about three minutes left until I can’t keep my hands off you any longer and I want some privacy.”

All Charles has done is sit on the table and let Erik tell him how much he wants him, and apparently that’s a turn-on. With a sly smile, Charles asks Erik to help him down from the table, holding out his hand. Erik takes it. Charles slides his fingers over the inside of Erik’s wrist, and loses his balance when he scoots off the table, grabbing onto Erik’s shoulder with his other hand to catch himself, tweaking his fingers into Erik’s hair. He steadies himself, still stroking the skin on the inside of Erik’s wrist.

“This isn’t clumsiness, this is more like seduction.” Erik’s face is close to his.

“I thought you didn’t think of good lines until 3:00 a.m.,” Charles replies, grazing Erik’s cheek with his own.

“You’ll have to compare them and let me know.” Erik’s breath is warm, and his lips brush Charles’ ear when he speaks.

“Am I going to hear that live or in a text message?”

“You’re smart enough to figure that out on your own.”

 

* * *

 

Erik wouldn’t give Charles back his snow pants. Or rather, he pointed out that it might jar his knee to put his snow pants back on, so Erik should just carry them. The result is a sexy combination of bulky ski parka and muscular black legs in spandex. The ski parka obscures most of his ass, which is unfortunate, but Charles takes that back off as soon as they’re in Erik’s hotel room. The room is fairly basic - two queen beds, a couple end tables with lamps, chairs and a television. Charles hobbles over to the closest bed and rearranges the pillows before Erik can do it for him, propping himself up against the headboard.

The ice pack is still cold, and Charles fidgets with it for a few minutes. Erik stands there and watches him. Thanks to all those inter-departmental meetings, this isn’t the first time he’s had a chance to look his fill, but now that they’re alone and have admitted to liking each other, there’s an extra frisson of anticipation. When Charles keeps fidgeting with the ice pack, Erik realizes he’s nervous. That helps Erik relax some.

“Here,” he says, taking a pillow from the other bed. “Let’s put this under your knee.” He matches words to actions and shifts Charles’ leg to arrange the pillow. Erik isn’t sure if it’s creepy or not to keep hold of Charles’ leg after helping him get the pillow and ice pack arranged, but he ends up running his fingers down Charles’ shin and around his calf.

“That’s fine,” Charles says, and then he coughs because his voice came out in a rough whisper.

At 3:00 a.m., Erik is going to think of lots of great things to say. But for now, he goes with his usual modus operandi, which is to be really blunt and hope he can apologize later if he fucks up too badly. Erik kicks off his shoes, peels out of his sweater, leaving only the t-shirt, and joins Charles on the bed, leaning against the same pillow that Charles is using because he’s taken both of them. “So, do you want to turn on the tv and pretend to watch for a while? Or can I just put an arm around you right now?”

“Is this flirting?” Charles arches an eyebrow at him, which has the effect of drawing even more attention to those blue eyes, as if Erik hasn’t been paying enough attention to them, which is false.

“I can google some lines if you want.”

“Yes, please,” Charles replies.

Erik isn’t sure if Charles is joking or not, so he decides to just go with the plain meaning of the words. He boots up his laptop and a couple minutes later he’s discussing search terms with Charles. “How about ‘sexy gay pickup lines?’”

“We’re past the bar pickup thing. Try ‘romantic evening’.” Charles leans in closer to look at Erik’s laptop screen, or maybe just for the sake of leaning in closer.

“Too hetero. How about ‘making out with a knee injury’?” Erik accommodates Charles’ lean by putting an arm around him and shifting the laptop so it’s on both of their legs.

“Good detail in that one,” Charles replies. Now his head is resting lightly on Erik’s shoulder.

“Huh, that didn’t pull up anything useful. I thought you could find the answer to every question on the Internet,” Erik says. He tightens the hand he’s left at Charles’ waist over that bulky sweater, and starts to rub a bit.

“Maybe we can write the definitive article on that topic,” Charles replies, pushing the laptop over until it isn’t on their laps anymore.

Charles tips his head up at the same time Erik turns his head and their lips meet. As first kisses go, it’s not too awkward. They only bump noses a bit. Charles gets his hand caught and works it loose to get his arm around Erik’s shoulders, pulling him down as Charles leans back. Then the awkwardness dissolves into desire. This is Charles’ mouth under his, those full red lips that he’s been memorizing at staff meetings and fantasizing about late at night. They’re every bit as kissable as he’d imagined. Erik works a series of exploratory kisses across his mouth, wanting to kiss every bit of those lips, thrilling to the feel of Charles’ tongue darting out to invite him in deeper, but holding off. He’ll deepen the kiss soon enough, after his mouth has claimed everything he wants.

Erik has both hands at Charles’ waist now, and strokes one firmly down the smooth spandex on Charles’ hip. Charles shifts in response, turning towards Erik’s embrace. Erik hovers his mouth over Charles’ open mouth, Charles waiting for him with a low exhalation of desire that turns into a groan when Erik finally takes him in a deep and heated kiss, exploring the inside of Charles’ mouth as thoroughly as the outside. Charles’ hands are on his back, and then one is worming its way up under Erik’s t-shirt, trying to press them closer together.

When Erik releases Charles’ mouth to trail kisses down his throat, Charles wriggles against him, trying to lie down beneath him. There is nothing Erik wants more right now than to have Charles lying under his body, so he rolls slightly off of him to give him room to move . . .

. . . and his face explodes in pain when he falls off the bed and hits his cheek on the end table.

“Shit!”

There is a sharp, indrawn gasp from Charles, and then, “You’re bleeding! Here, take this.” The ice pack lands on his face, which hurts even more than the abrupt end to their kissing. “I’m going to grab a towel.”

Charles scoots off the bed, and the image of his erection pressing against those black spandex thermals makes Erik moan in disappointment. Charles is back within a minute, handing Erik a bright white hand towel from the bathroom. The area between the bed and the wall isn’t very big, so Erik is folded up tightly enough that he has to pull on Charles’ hand to extricate himself. Charles moves back, making room for Erik to sit on the side of the bed, holding the blood-streaked hand towel and ice pack to his face. He closes his eyes and tips his head back against the headboard.

It’s not long before Erik identifies a sound from Charles as a chuckle.

“What?”

“You know what, Erik? You now have a bona fide most embarrassing moment!”

“Shut up, Charles. Like I’m ever telling this story.”

“You’ll have to though. Aren’t you presenting at that breakout session tomorrow morning?” There is a laugh in Charles’ voice. “Even if you don’t need stitches, you’re going to have a helluva black eye.”

“Why are you laughing about that?”

“Because I’m going to be in the front row making sure you don’t leave anything out of the story.”

“How about you go to Hank’s presentation on micro-level brain structures?”

“Nope. You have to level, Erik. Otherwise I’m going to get arrested for assault and battery. I mean, everyone knows we’re here together.”

That’s thanks to Raven, who staked out the exit to the first aid room with Sean and Armando and cheered loudly when Erik and Charles got in an elevator together and Erik threatened her life if she followed them any further.

“Why are you so gleeful about this?” Erik demands.

“I’ve got bragging rights! This is almost as good as breaking a bed.” The mischievous glint in Charles’ eyes is matched only by the wideness of his smile.

“I used to think you were nice, you know,” Erik says, taking the towel off his face. The blood doesn’t start running again immediately.

“I used to think you were mysterious and sophisticated,” Charles replies.

The bleeding appears to have stopped, but Erik decides not to push his luck by smiling or moving his face too much. “Disappointed?”

Charles straddles his lap, still with that brash grin. “No, this is much more fun. Now I can stop worrying about impressing you and just be myself.”

It almost hurts to force himself not to smile back at him. Erik spreads a hand over Charles’ thigh. “Just yourself, huh? Tell me something I should know about you.”

Charles slides a hand down Erik’s chest, over his belly, down to his crotch, and starts massaging him through his pants. “You know how good I am at explaining neural mapping techniques? I’m even better at blow jobs.”

Erik’s cock, which is already interested in what Charles’ hand is doing, swells at his words. “Now I’m going to have that thought in my head at your next presentation.”

That bold grin gets wider. “Every time I make eye contact with you at the next inter-departmental meeting, I want you to think of what I’m about to do to you.” Charles doesn’t bother with kissing Erik, just rubs his face against him, skimming down his sweater and then stops at Erik’s pants, pressing his cheek against Erik’s erection through the fabric until Erik has to struggle to keep himself from thrusting against Charles.

Finally, Charles unbuttons and unzips his pants, sliding them down with Erik lifting his hips to hurry him along. “Oh, yes,” Charles whispers before he takes Erik’s cock in his mouth and begins to suck, slow and hard, building the rhythm evenly.

Erik still has one hand holding an ice pack to his face, which leaves him only one free hand to wind into Charles’ hair. He isn’t paying much attention to the hand that isn’t busy with Charles, and he drops the ice pack and instinctively tries to catch it, which dislodges Charles.

Charles pulls back and is enough of a bastard to gloat. “Well?”

“Well what?” Erik growls, repositioning the ice pack and then tossing it onto the end table because he’s got other things to concentrate on right now.

“Am I good at blow jobs?”

“I’ll give you an evaluation when you’ve finished.”

“Erik!”

“Back to work,” Erik says, pushing on Charles’ shoulder to get him back where he’s supposed to be right now.

“You’re such a bastard,” Charles comments, settling in between Erik’s thighs, but then he swallows Erik down again, so Erik forgives him everything and gives himself up to the sensations pounding through him.

Erik can’t keep from crying out when he comes, and the grimace reopens the cut on his cheek. Blood flows.

“You’re not much for post-climax cuddling, I take it,” Charles says, dabbing at Erik’s face with the towel.

“Dammit, Charles,” is all Erik can manage to say, what with the brain-melting confusion of the boneless pleasure of an orgasm combined with the pain of his stinging cheek.

“Well, I am.” Charles straddles him again and kisses the side of his face that isn’t bleeding. “Or would you rather postpone the cuddling until 3:00 a.m. when I get that really great line about being a captive audience that you’ve promised me?”

“I will tie you down to the bed and show you what it really means to be a captive audience if you don’t get off me this instant.”

“Are we having our first fight?” Charles asks, all excitement, but he gets off Erik.

Erik stands up to go look in the mirror, yanking his pants back into place. “Somehow, I never suspected you would be quite so cheeky.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because I’m so intimidating.”

“You shouldn’t believe everything they tell you in your work evaluations, you know, it’s mostly just flattery,” Charles explains earnestly.

Erik examines his face in the mirror, smothering the laugh because it will make the blood flow again.

Charles hops over to stand next to him. “Here, let me see.”

“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we? Your knee and my cheek.”

“Yes, we’re perfect for each other. Cue the confetti,” Charles says, examining the cut. “I think you at least need some steri strips on that. Let’s go see Angel again.”

Erik heaves out a huge sigh. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

“Another incredibly embarrassing moment, yes. It’s like you’re having a most embarrassing weekend, not just a moment, you overachiever.”

“You could dial down the glee a few notches.”

“I could, but I won’t.”

“Is dating you always going to be like this?” Erik asks.

“Yes.”

“That should bother me more than it does.”

“I knew you were man enough to handle me,” Charles says, and pats his uninjured cheek in congratulations.


End file.
